1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is heat sinks for dissipating a thermal load.
2. Description of Related Art
The development of the EDVAC computer system of 1948 is often cited as the beginning of the computer era. Since that time, users have relied on computer systems to simplify the process of information management. Today's computer systems are much more sophisticated than early systems such as the EDVAC. Such modern computer systems deliver powerful computing resources to provide a wide range of information management capabilities through the use of computer software such as database management systems, word processors, spreadsheets, client/server applications, web services, and so on.
In order to deliver powerful computing resources, computer architects must design powerful computer processors. Current computer processors, for example, are capable of executing billions of computer program instructions per second. Operating these computer processors requires a significant amount of power, and often such processors can consume over 100 watts. Consuming significant amounts of power generates a considerable amount of heat. Unless the heat is removed, heat generated by a computer processor may degrade or destroy the processor's functionality.
To prevent the degradation or destruction of a computer processor, a computer architect may remove heat from the processor by using heat sinks. Current heat sinks, however, only provide one or two cooling surfaces with attached fins for dissipating the heat absorbed by the heat sinks. Such heat sinks are often unable to remove the heat necessary to prevent damage to today's computer processors because physical limitations of the enclosure containing the processor may prevent a system designer from designing cooling surface large enough or fins tall enough to dissipate the required amount of heat from the processor. In addition, physical limitations of the enclosure for the processor often prevent the system architect from centrally locating a computer processor under a heat sink for even distribution of the heat generated by the processor. Because the heat source is not centrally located at the heat sink, a computer architect must design a larger heat sink to remove the same amount of heat had the processor been centrally located under the heat sink. Combining a fan with a heat sink may improve the ability to remove heat from the computer processor, but often a computer architect is unable to implement such a combination because combining a fan with the heat sink only increases the physical space required inside the enclosure containing the processor.